Stethoscopes are known having a double-headed body contact piece provided at one axial end thereof with a larger-diameter auscultation head and provided at the other axial end thereof with a smaller-diameter auscultation head. Typically, one head is for example used for auscultation of lower-frequency body sounds and the other for auscultation of higher-frequency body sounds.
In configurations where the body contact piece is provided with first and second acoustic connector portions which are respectively in acoustic communication with the first head and with the second head, the examining physician when he wishes to switch over from one auscultation head to the other can disconnect the stethoscope-tube attachment from one of the body contact piece's two acoustic connector portions and connect the tube attachment instead to the other acoustic connector portion, although this is of course inconvenient. The stethoscope-tube attachment may be of the single-acoustic-passage type leading from the selected acoustic connector portion of the body contact piece to a single earpiece which the physician wears on one ear during auscultation. Or else, a two-acoustic-passage stethoscope-tube attachment can be employed. The two acoustic-signal-transmitting passages of the latter are for example connected to the selected one of the body contact piece's two acoustic connector portions by means of a Y-type stethoscope-tube portion or by means of a Y-type connector fixture; the two acoustic-signal-transmitting passages of the stethoscope-tube attachment are then typically connected at their other ends to respective ones of the two earpieces of a binaural headset.
A further possibility is to provide the body contact piece with a single acoustic connector portion which acoustically communicates, internally of the body contact piece, with the ausculation chamber of a selected one of the two auscultation heads, the selection of one head or the other being performed by means of a manually activated switchover mechanism. In such case the body contact piece's single acoustic connector portion can, as before, be connected to a single-acoustic-passage stethoscope-tube attachment leading to a single earpiece, or can be connected via a Y-type tube portion or Y-type connector fixture to the two passages of a two-acoustic-passage stethoscope-tube attachment whose two acoustic-signal-transmitting passages lead to respective ones of the two earpieces of a binaural headset.
West German published patent application ("Offenlegungsschrift") No. 2 204 730 discloses a modification of the configuration set forth immediately above. Instead of the body contact piece having a single acoustic connector portion which acoustically communicates, internally of the body contact piece, with the selected one of the two auscultation heads, the body contact piece is provided with two acoustic connector portions, each connected to a respective passage of a two-acoustic-passage stethoscope-tube attachment. However, the two acoustic connector portions on the body contact piece are, internally of the latter, acoustically connected to each other. Accordingly, the use of two acoustic connector portions instead of a single acoustic connector portion merely serves to establish a conventional Y-junction for the two stethoscope-tube passages, namely now internally of the body contact piece, instead of establishing such Y-junction externally thereof by means of the conventional Y-type tube portion or Y-type connector fixture.